Naivety and being on the spectrum

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I keep hearing how people on the spectrum show a certain naivety. What does that mean? I think most are in touch with the reality of life in a way most NT never will be. Just because they appear child-like doesn't mean they don't know what's up.

Opinions?

One way I think this could manifest is that we take things very literally, so we might be more inclined to trust people at their word because it's hard for us to comprehend that someone wouldn't do what they say.

There is a naivety , I know it's true. Not everyone maybe, but there is a tendency of assuming people are good and have good intentions, especially at a young age.
It must decrease with age though, but slower than in NTs. It takes us innumerable blows to the self esteem to understand that not everyone is "nice until you offend them". Some people are mean, right off the bat, even when you've been nothing but nice to them, that's why you see so many threads asking "what did I do wrong there??" because we assume we're at fault. Sometimes the answer is simply "you were talking to an asshat." But this is not our first assumption, especially as a young aspie.

I too easily forget that not everyone is good-hearted and honest; will I ever learn?

I have been taken advantage of numerous times because of my trusting nature and I guess I could be considered gullible also. I can only go by what people say to me and take their word for it.

It's not us, it's them. Naivety wouldn't come into it if nts weren't devious, selfish and manipulative.
Sad that they make being nice sound like a crime.


Yeah ive been taken advantage of a good few times too. Its like people know that i WANT to help and they take advantage of it to the full, the bastards.

Last edited by somerandom15 on 28 Nov 2011, 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

until recently i have always thought everyone was "good"
and they would treat others as they want to be treated.
i looked for the best in everyone and if someone was doing something "bad" they must just not know.

i still catch myself looking for the best in everyone. no thats not a bad thing but i will ignore some very very big red flags and just look for the "good" that im assuming they have

Even though I know people hurt me I can't help but think that everyone has good intentions.

I'm fully aware that I'm incredibly naive still because of being aware of how much more naive I was when I first went to college.

i used to be very naive and got betrayed over and over again. looking back, i don't believe how naive i've been, and i each time i took a blow i thought will i ever learn? and i was so ashamed of being so gullible. but no more. now i'm careful.

The important thing is that you got back up and learned from those experiences. I was very naive, trusting and gullible and faced painful experiences because of it. It really has damaged my trust and sense of security in people and makes it difficult when it comes to dealing with others and maintaining relationships.

I think I appear naive in some ways just because I take things literally.

I don't usually fall for scams or tricks however and I notice more NT's fall for stuff more than I do because I question.
My questioning is often thought of as cold and I'm told to SHHH! So the one scamming can continue tugging on emotional strings.

I've come to realize alot of people are in fact mean. It did take a long time but I understand now.

I don't think "naiveté" meant good-heartedness originally. AS doesn't make you honest or moral.

Any association between AS and naiveté more likely stems from the idea of "social naiveté". And that (doubtful) term leads right to TOM and the supposed/possible inability of autistic people to understand how lies work and how to detect them.

In the most basic sense, lying to someone can be intentionally not offering information. That's a major part of what happens in the Sally-Anne test. Someone's withholding information from someone else and it takes some social experience by trial and error and decent verbal skills to figure out that humans are capable of withholding (verbal) information if they don't reveal it in their actions or speech.

So in the same way that toddlers assume their parents even when absent will know they messed up and that the toddler's parents will naturally think the world works the same way the toddler thinks it does, it's said that autistic people keep that toddler-like "social naiveté".

Well, make of that what you will.

I'm sure figuring out that all people are capable of lying is simply once one's receptive and expressive verbal skills reach a certain level and once one's visual/auditory perception can capture the surroundings (including what people do) consistently (with as little interruptions and without messing up information processing too often).

It's just that it can take longer in autistic people than in normal people. And that in some autistic people there can persist other reasons/disorders besides the autism that disrupt and alter the course of development of speech and sensory processing.

I suppose that closely entwined with the "social naiveté" thingy is the supposedly typically autistic idea to either 1. assume others know/can guess what the autistic person knows but doesn't say 2. others must think like the autistic person does.

(1. might be just a result of misjudging non-verbal signal, the other person equally misreading the autistic person's non-verbal signals in combination with that the autistic person isn't well-used to the cultural references and culturally deemed "common knowledge" due to their communication/social differences.

2. doesn't seem to be a problem of autism to me. Most normal people also assume that everybody else thinks and functions like them. So 2. would be more like a deficit of humanity or a deficit that comes with having at least some empathy and thus the ability to identify (with) other people.)

I'm not sure that its simple, I don't understand why anyone would. I really have no sense of people choosing to give people false information. The complete lack of understanding makes it really difficult to understand in any meaningful way that people will do this, even when I am having major trust issues like I am at the moment. The concept of saying false statements in anything other than a game doesn't make sense to me. I can process that it sometimes does happen because of having seen it happen, so it must happen sometimes, yet its at that level that the concept of anyone lying occurs to me.

I think you're talking of a more complex deduction that's beyond simple recognition.

I was thinking about the capability of recognising by logical deduction based on access to enough information that whatever and whoever isn't present at one moment does not normally see or hear what's going on during that moment. An example would be... I can only think of a personal one. When I think back to when I was kindergarten, at some point I had developed a shaky concept of that when I was in my room by myself (and keeping really quiet) other objects and people that were not in my room and could not hear me through the door or the walls would not see me and not hear me. (Nevermind that objects can't see or hear but I wasn't entirely sure on the whole people thing yet.)

That knowledge has to be acquired in some form first in order to even begin to recognise that people can decide what information to share, when people withhold information or offer false information, what they withhold/lie about intentionally or accidentally and what their motives for their actions could be.

I am only speaking for myself here, but I am not naive at all. I just find it really hard to stand up for myself, and so I don't do it. It's part of Social Phobia. I don't like arguing and people storming off because I'm afraid it will ruin my self-esteem.....more so. I am such a thin-skinned, sensitive person, and I am always so afraid of getting my feelings hurt, and I also fear rejection. And I also like to be a nice person, but I find myself being too nice, to the point where I find it's too awkward to suddenly say ''no'' because they've got too used to my good nature.

So that is why I appear naive, but I'm not naive inside. We can all be a bit naive sometimes, my auntie is and she's almost 50 and is NT. She gets herself involved in silly relationships with random men, then comes running back to her family again, then promises herself she won't get involved with any man again, then a few months later she goes and does it.....we all think she is so gullible. Even I know better than that. There are a few men fancying me who I wouldn't touch with a barge pole, and I know how to keep my distance and not let them get anything out of me. I don't say anything because I find it hard to stand up for myself, but I send out correct signals and they (hopefully) cotton on to it.